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Federal gold medal or either of the other two you mentioned are best for buckshot as they are straight walled and have a bit more needed capacity. The cheapo federals will also do nicely, but gold medals are the best assuming you are loading 2.75" of course. If you can find federal one piece plastic hunting cases they have the largest capacity available in 2.75" hulls, but wont last any longer than the Euro hulls.

I've been using Cheddite Mult-hulls for my #F and #1 buck, and so far I can't complain. BPI has blow-out sales on them sometimes, and I was able to pick up a couple hundred, pre-primed and new for a song.

I've found that junk (cheap) RP hulls work good for making blasting slug ammo if you just assemble the shell as you normally would, then instead of crimping anything, I just cut the crimp portion off. The hulls are small/tight enough to hold the wad and slug in place.

I've found that this doesn't work with Federal Hulls. The slugs will just fall out if you don't crimp them, because the hulls are too big/thin to hold the wad and slug in place with friction alone. In order to use the Lee 1oz slug with them, I omit the .125" 20 gauge nitro card under at the base of the slug and use a standard fold crimp.

Someday I suppose I'll have to invest in a roll crimping tool. Saving so much money here making my own shotgun slugs I'm surely going to go broke soon.

The reason the wads "fall out" of the Federal hulls is that the interior is straight walled rather than tapered. The proper wads should be used in each type of hull.

Do not use wads intended for tapered hulls in straight walled Federal hulls.

Do not use the same wad in the Remington cheap (Gun Club type) shells or any Remington hull while also using that very same wad in any Federal shell. Powder migration and excessive shot to shot velocity variation will be a problem.

I'm 100% sure I'm in the wrong here, but I refuse to stock a dozen different kinds of wads for blasting ammo. I'm also not going to not use a hull that I pick up for blasting ammo because it's the wrong kind for the wads that I have on hand.

Last time I made slug ammo using tapered wads with federal hulls, I put all shots on 8.5x11" paper @ 50 yards which is all I'm looking to get out of my bead only sighted scatter gun.

Last time I made slug ammo using tapered wads with federal hulls, I put all shots on 8.5x11" paper @ 50 yards which is all I'm looking to get out of my bead only sighted scatter gun.

If you always store and transport your ammo base down you would likely never have problems, but when that ammo is carried in a hunting coat or in your pockets over the span of a few days it can and will affect performance. I did some tests with straight walled cases and tapered wads where i turned them over and tapped them repeatedly on the bench and not only were they all over the place, but one was a blooper and each charge was weighed for the test including both powder and shot.

You might be surprised at how much you can tighten up your groups by using the correct components and demanding consistent crimps. Blasting ammo or not it's always more exciting when the groups are smaller.

Agree with Uniquedot's comments above, as they are in line with my earlier post. The powder will sift past the overpowder cup and wind up in the compression section if a tapered wad is used with a straightwalll hull.

The primer may also shove some of the powder there before the pressure gets high enough to obturate the overpowder cup.

12S3's and 12S4's (examples of the proper Federal wads) aren't that hard to obtain, and inexpensive substitutes exist by the makers like Claybuster that can be reinforced with a thin hard card on the shotcup floor if used in a smoothbore. This greatly enhances wad survival.

Without it the cheaper substitutes suffer from crush section deformation and ruptured shotcup floors, which doesn't help accuracy, even in a smoothbore. Shots will be wild in such cases.

You don't need a dozen extra wads. Just one favored suitable one. Not that great a cross to bear.

Best for greatest velocity and accuracy for slugs are REM STS cases.
The basecups are hardest for least expansion compared to others.
I take used ones, use mouth hone to get rid of wrinkles, use
super sizer on the base, better than new.Ed

If you're tied to a particular chamber pressure, like the normal 11,000 psi for 12 gauge, the straight walled cases will give higher velocity for the same pressure level than the tapered cases like the Remington STS.

Federal 12ga 2-3/4 hulls feature an extra-deep base, plenty of internal space for very versatile load applications. The interior capacity of these hulls is so great that the primer actually extends up and over the basewad by 0.059". This is a very strong hull and one of the most consistent hulls we've ever seen in our ballistic lab. Used for many law enforcement applications.